James Tynion IV and Martin Simmonds Talk Dracula

Dracula doesn’t suck. I’m sorry to start off with a pun about vampires but not really. Skybound has been killing it recently with getting huge IP comics with incredible creative teams. When they announced that they had the licenses for the Universal Monsters, I almost had to pick my jaw off the floor. But when they said James Tynion and Martin Simmonds were going to be unearthing Dracula, my jaw did hit the floor. You may know the team from their incredible series The Department of Truth where they tackle all sorts of conspiracy and cryptids. But now this dynamic duo has moved onto telling their version of the story about the biggest vampire of all time in spectacular fashion. I had the chance to chat with them about opening up the tomb of Dracula to adapt the story for comics. 

Dracula is a showcase of why horror thrives in comics. Tynion’s masterful scripting is on display in this issue with some truly incredible scenes to introduce us to the characters. Some of the dialogue had me giggling, which is very important to me in a comic. I have read most horror comics that have come out in the last few years and I was shocked how much I was flipping through this issue of a story I knew very well over and over. Tynion brings a unique flair to everything he works on and this is no exception.

But as you’ll hear in this interview, Martin Simmonds design and color palette take Dracula to a higher plane. There is a masterful use of sepia tones to emulate the black and white nature of the film itself but with vibrant thematic splashes of red through the issue. The design and emotional displays from Renfield are some of the strongest artistic elements I’ve seen in a horror comic. The use of Dracula's eyes in the story drives home the power of the vampire which we get into Simmond's artistic inspirations about in this interview. We discuss both the colors and the character designs at length in this interview about their Dracula series.